


Five Times Peter Guillam Didn't Have A Drink with Ricki Tarr (and One Time He Did)

by Toft



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Genre: Alcohol, First Time, Food, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 17:47:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toft/pseuds/Toft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter and Ricki, before, during and after the events of the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Peter Guillam Didn't Have A Drink with Ricki Tarr (and One Time He Did)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valderys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valderys/gifts).



> Chestnut_filly has made [a podfic of this story](http://chestnut-filly.dreamwidth.org/14698.html)

Five Times Peter Guillam and Ricki Tarr didn't have a drink together, and one time they did

1.

George had introduced him to the discreet and quiet little café in the Marseilles Vieux-Port, off the beaten tourist track, where Peter Guillam first met Ricki Tarr. Peter was Jacques Giard at the time, booked onto an 8am flight to Algiers. His assignment was to put together and nurture a network among the Algerian nationalists and anti-French socialists, and not lose his bloody head, Peter, or put so much as a little finger inside the British Consulate. The cafe was empty at this time of day except for some old men playing cards and drinking pastis, the whitewashed walls haphazardly adorned with framed newspaper clippings from the 30's and 40's. There was a tinny Edith Piaf record playing which the proprietress and sole waitress hummed along to. It was three in the afternoon, but the room was so dim with the fug of cigarette smoke inside and the morose winter day outside that it might have been well into the evening. Peter was certainly drinking as if it was.

He was facing the only door, back against the wall, but he still didn't see the exact moment George came in, too busy gnawing on a nail. A few paces behind George, another man, one Peter didn't know. He didn't look very bloody Circus, was the first thing Peter thought about him. Long hair, haunted eyes, clothes too flashy for Marseilles. Peter's heart sank. Good God, George wasn't going to saddle him with a babysitter, was he?

"Delighted to see you again, Jacques." Smiley spoke in French, of course, with a slight German accent. Peter always wondered if it was intentional.

"The service is a little slow, but I do recommend the bouillabaisse," Peter said, showing his teeth. He nodded behind Smiley. "I don't know him."

"Nervous, Jacques?" said Smiley gravely. But he nodded at Tarr.

"Wait outside for us, please."

"Let me get a bloody drink at least."

Peter raised his eyebrows. He followed Tarr's swaying body with his eyes as he went to the bar. His immediate impression was of a chancer who'd do anything for the right price, grimy, back-alley work. Circus material after all, then - George always did know how to pick them. Tarr took his beer and insinuated himself into the game in the corner. Harsh barks of laughter and dockyard French punctuated his and George's conversation.

"I found him in Penang last week. He tried to pick my pocket," Smiley said, conversationally, seeing Peter look up once. "We've struck up a sort of friendship, one might say. I suggested I might be able to get him a job."

"I see," said Peter.

"I've been rather afraid to let him out of my sight."

"I don't think you need worry there. He's practically clinging to your coat tails."

"Is he?" Smiley said. He looked faintly surprised, self-deprecating, shadowed. Bad times at home? Peter wondered. He'd heard a rumour that Ann was running around with Bill Haydon. Maybe it was true.

"How are you feeling?" Smiley said seriously.

"Oh, bonny," Peter said, trying to make a joke of it. "Damned excited, actually."

Smiley pursed his lips.

They talked over the watery bouillabaisse, dipped out of the big pot made for the regulars in the corner, about Algiers, the weather, the situation in Paris, the most recent movements at home. In the corner, he caught Tarr looking at them, every so often, watching as hungrily as he ate his own stew. Peter didn't know Smiley as well then, but he felt a kind of reserve in him, that evening, a stillness in his face, and it chilled him. He thought it was Bill, then, or work, Control getting old and sick; later, he wondered if Smiley had already suspected the other, bigger betrayal that was waiting for Peter in Algiers, if Smiley thought he was looking at a dead man.

2.

Peter lay bloody with two broken fingers in his bolt hole in Algiers. It was a consulate safe house, hardly worthy of the name, and wouldn't he just catch it, in England, wouldn't he just look a fool, if he made it back, if he made it out of this hot damned room with the filthy carpet and his shirt stiff with blood and the pain, and the flies buzzing around Anwar's eyes. He didn't have the strength to swat them away anymore, filthy things. His shoulder hurt. Oh God. Anwar's eyes. The first Peter had seen when he landed at Algiers, deep, earnest and sweet, and hadn't he given his body up so sweetly too, serving up Turkish Delight on his bare stomach to Peter, laughing.

The call from the muezzin jerked him awake. The clouds of bats were swirling outside, snatching insects from the warm evening air. Noon, or a little after, he got the emergency signal through to London from the consulate. How long would it take them to pull him out? Or would they cut him off as a lost cause?

Powdered sugar dusted white over brown skin. Algiers, sweet white on top, iced with French imperialist architecture, and rotting underneath. What a damned fool he was. But how had they caught him? Not Maria, surely. Not Abdel. Not Hassim. Had he miscalculated? Had he been indiscreet, with Anwar? He should have gone to the consulate earlier. He might have saved them. But who had known? Drifting above himself, he watched his mind go in circles, round and round and round. He was dreadfully thirsty.

The creak of the door opening, woke him again. Peter nearly put a bullet in the doorframe, then gasped out loud at the needles of pain through his chest.

"Put your hands where I can see them," he rasped.

"Hello, Mr. Guillam," said Ricki Tarr. "Do you recognise me? We met in Marseilles. I was with Mr. Smiley."

Peter recognised him. The barrel of his gun wavered as red washed before his eyes.

"I've come to take you home. Come on now, put the gun down." Tarr knelt below the line of the window and shuffled towards him slowly, taking in Anwar's body, the bulletholes in the wall above him, the bloody slide downwards. Peter didn't seem to be able to move his head, and his vision began to black out around the edges, until he was looking at Tarr's ankles, his socks and shoes. Too flashy for Algiers. He felt a tug, and saw the gun leave his hand.

"Oh, deary me," Tarr said above him, ghostly. "What a nasty mess you've gotten yourself into, Petey-boy."

Tarr half-carried him downstairs, shoved him into a car. Covered him with a rug. Peter woke to find a small, angry-looking woman in a burqa sewing up the hole in his shoulder, and stared, appalled, at the black thread running through his own numb skin. Tarr's voice in the background.

"Sent the best out for me, did they?" Peter slurred at him, later. Tarr looked back at him steadily until Peter's eyes fell shut of their own accord, leaving him in darkness. _Another damned power cut_ , he thought. It occurred to the rational part of his mind that he was very ill, probably delirious. Then he felt a nudge against his lips, and shut his cracked lips tight instinctively, shook his head.

"Come on, you fucking idiot," Tarr said softly. "Drink up. It's just water."

Liquid trickled down Peter's chin. He opened his mouth, and choked on its sweetness.

 

3.

Six months of physical therapy in a Surrey hospital, recovering from the operation. He slept a lot. Then, when he was deemed well enough, mandatory debriefing, which was the closest thing the service offered to the other kind of therapy. They sent him home with a box of sleeping pills and a desk job. He drank a lot, and bought a classic 1967 Porsche 911 with the injury compensation. He went out to Old Compton Street, angry and reckless, looking for tails all the way, and took home a Maths teacher called Richard, who was too inexperienced to be careful with him. He was as surprised as Richard when he agreed to see him again, and again, and again.

Six months on the desk turned into a year, and then Jim Prideaux's death hit the Circus like the proverbial bombshell, and in the unnatural quiet of the building in those weeks afterwards, George Smiley poked his head around the door and said, "Peter, I've been sacked."

Crawling into work the next day, an hour late, desperately hungover, Peter was called up to the fifth floor. _That's it, then,_ he thought to himself, watching the building slide by through the mesh door. _I'm out. I'm washed up._ But the wonder he felt was almost like relief.

Later, he always wondered if that was why they left him hanging around Richard's flat for a few weeks, suspended without pay, to wonder what the hell he'd do with himself afterwards. Richard was on half term, and they walked in the park together brushing hands, cooked complicated French meals and went to the opera, read novels and made love for hours, dangerously close to being happy. When they sent him to Brixton, he almost told them to stuff it. But he didn't. They fought about that, later that night. Peter's recent period of unemployment excepted, they fought several times a week, about Peter's mysterious trips and late nights, about Richard's awful cat, about their politics (incompatible) and their families (off-limits) and mutual friends (they didn't have any). They made it up the way they usually did, with Richard apologising and Peter awkward, "No, _I'm_ sorry." Kissing, and Richard sliding down his body with his eyes averted.

" You just don't always seem like you're really _here_ ," Richard said to him later, stroking his face in the dark. "Sometimes I think I'm going to wake up and you're going to be gone."

Peter felt a sharp pain where the bullet had gone in, close to his heart, but knew he was already too old to stop having secrets.

The next day, his first in the Brixton office, someone rapped on the doorframe and said, "Anyone home?"

He looked up, irritated. Tarr was leaner, older. But he still looked too damned pleased with himself, and his shirt was ridiculous. The Russians could probably see him from space.

"That your pile of scrap metal outside?" Tarr said mildly. "Looks like it got dinged by a moving van. Front left bumper's come right off."

Peter cursed, and was on his way out of the door before he turned and caught Tarr's smirk.

"Go and fuck yourself, Tarr," he snarled, but he felt the noose of gratitude loosen its hold around his throat, and he almost liked the man for it.

Tarr flashed a mean grin. "Welcome to Brixton, Mr. Guillam. We're rough boys, here. You'll like us."

He'd learned already that Tarr had a bit of a reputation as a ladies man. Not that that meant anything; Peter had one himself. Now, he kept his expression flat and uninterested. George had told him once, _never let them see you looking for a double meaning_.

"Beer, later?" Tarr asked, one eyebrow raised in invitation.

"No thanks," Peter said. "Sorting out the mess you lads have made of the records is going to take me all bloody weekend as it is."

Tarr snorted, and walked away.

 

4.

"Istanbul," said Peter.

"Istanbul," Tarr repeated. "I'm with you so far, Mr. Guillam."

"Good," Peter snapped. He had a small office in Brixton with a beautiful view of a brick wall and a perpetual blue van. He'd brought in his good chair, but there were English institutional plastic chairs in mustard and fuschia for the guests. Tarr squirmed on his. "Now, listen carefully, Tarr. I want you to go in there, see if their rogue Russian's for sale, and then get out. No approaches, no covert rummages, no mess. If he's on, get in touch and we'll send you the usual paperwork; if not, draw the line. Okay? That all clear?"

"Crystal clear, Mr. Guillam," Tarr said. He had a trick of looking totally sincere while somehow giving the impression that he was taking the piss. Peter scowled.

"I mean it, Tarr. We'll cut you off without a word."

"Yes sir. In and out. Nothing messy."

Tarr's eyes sparkled. Peter ignored him.

"You'll be a salesman, Trench. They've made him up for you new upstairs. Cars. Australian. Your father was Australian, wasn't he? Lay minister?"

"That's right," Tarr said, guarded. As well he might be. Peter had heard the story from George. Bible in one hand, cane in the other.

"Do you want a drink?" Peter said, changing tack. He had a bottle of terrible whiskey in his desk, given to him as a leaving present from head office by Julie the secretary.

"Not while I'm on duty, sir," said Tarr. He was looking at the wall now.

"Oh of course, it's Lent, isn't it," Peter said, all facetious spite. "I do apologise."

"I'm on the Blackstow job later," Tarr muttered. "Driving."

"Fine," said Peter. "Now listen, Tarr. Istanbul may not be enemy territory, but you're to behave as if it is. We've lost too many people through simple carelessness. Watch your back. Live in fear. You understand me?"

Tarr looked up, then. His eyes were dark. "Oh, I know how to do that, Mr. Guillam," he said. "That's why Mr. Smiley brought me in."

At the door, he turned, and caught Peter off guard. "That's why he brought you in too, isn't it, Mr. Guillam?"

"I can see why they put you in scalphunters, Ricki," Peter drawled. "It's your deep insight into the human psyche." Tarr flashed a smile, white and hungry, and slipped out of his office. Peter poured out a glass of the whiskey, rattled. It was four o'clock, after all.

When Tarr disappeared a month later, Peter wasn't particularly surprised. He didn't see Tarr for a year.

 

5.

He left Brixton to follow George around London on a fool's errand. He spied on his own people, and betrayed them as he began to feel he had been betrayed. The ground shifted under him, and he hit Ricki Tarr in the face for a liar, except Peter was the one who had been lied to. After George had showed him the missing pages, Peter glared at Tarr again, looking for some smugness, some of that look he had of keeping secrets, of enjoying it. Tarr looked up at him with a strange gentleness, blood oozing from his nose and mouth. He looked so damned young. The anger receded like a tidal wave, leaving him shaky.

He didn't go straight to the hotel with George, after. It was better that they weren't together out of doors. He thought about offering Tarr a drink, to apologise, but Tarr lay on the couch, holding ice on his nose, rambling about this girl, the Russian girl Irina. How he was going to bring her home and get out of the Service, how they were going to get married, live in Scotland, how they'd live on Tarr's reward, there'd probably be a reward, wouldn't there, Mr. Guillam? and maybe open a pub, or a garage. It grated on Peter's nerves more than it should have. It was obvious to any fool that she was already dead, and he told himself it was pity; later, he'd wonder if it was envy. He didn't ask himself whether it was envy of Tarr or of Irina.

"You make a pretty lousy knight in shining armour," snapped Peter finally. Tarr swung himself up on the couch.

"I'm here, aren't I? I risked my life for her, coming here. I didn't bloody do it for you," Tarr spat. The ice, forgotten on the couch, began to surround itself with a dark brown pool. They glared at each other across the room. Tarr's eye was swelling up. Peter sighed.

"Put that ice back on."

Tarr lay back with a grunt. He fell asleep, a few minutes later. Peter didn't realise until that point that he was probably almost delirious with exhaustion. Peter waited, then gently took the ice out of his cold fingers, and held it against his own bruised knuckles until the numbness crept up his wrists. Then he went to get drunk with George instead.

He almost killed himself, driving home sozzled; took a corner too fast and barely missed a bollard, trying to get back home to Richard and get it over with before he sobered up. It didn't work. After Richard had left, he sat there for most of the night, soul-sick with himself and the world.

It was a relief to pick a fight the next day, to see his own blood on the floor, feel pain blossoming across his body. When he saw his face, George raised his eyebrows. "Overdoing it a little, Peter, wouldn't you say?"

Peter grinned, still silly with adrenaline, and squashed the ridiculous urge to go to see Tarr again, to compare bruises.

6.

After it was all over, George said to him, "You've got some leave time coming, Peter. No arguments. Take a few months, have a rest. But before you go, I don't suppose you would consider passing through Paris to pick up Ricki, would you? I rather think we ought to keep a close eye on him for the time being, at least."

They were in Percy's old office; George had gotten rid of the hideous modern stuff and put in some mahogany chairs. Peter thought he recognised some of the furniture from Control's flat.

"You've told him," Peter said. "About Irina."

"Oh yes," George said gravely. "On the telephone. I thought it best not to let it fester any longer. He took it fairly well."

"He must have known."

George took of his spectacles and polished them slowly on his tie. "What was it old Leffman used to say in his lectures at Sarratt? It's easier to see through other people's eyes than to see through your own."

"Before my time, George."

George's mouth twisted. "Of course. I was forgetting. Well."

He slid another file to the centre of his desk from the pile on his right, and bent over it. Peter realised he was being dismissed. Something in the way George stared at the pages reminded him, very suddenly, of Control; George's retirement had aged him, but now he was filled with a new, terrible fire. He looked ageless in the way that Control had before he got really ill. Carved from stone. Peter had seen man after man come out of George's office earlier that morning - some haggard, some promoted - but George looked like he hadn't broken a sweat. Perhaps it was just the furniture, though. Peter wondered if he'd inherited Control's chairs, or if he'd bought them at auction.

"Peter," George said suddenly, not looking up. "You may have to... dust Ricki off, a little. He only took it fairly well."

"No problem, George."

He let himself out. Difficult to imagine George at a furniture auction, but less depressing than the alternative. There but for the grace of God. At least, Peter thought, as he swiped his card and walked out into the day, George had Ann.

*

He found Tarr in a grimy attic in Montparnasse, naturally. Tarr's face at the door was sullen, bleary-eyed and unshaven. His lip and eye were still healing.

"I'm finished," he said. "I don't work for you anymore. You can go home and tell them I told you to fuck off."

 

"You can at least let me return the gun," Peter said reasonably. "And give me a drink."

Tarr sneered. "Not on duty, Mr. Guillam?"

"I'm on holiday."

Tarr looked at him for a moment. Then said, "Fine. Give me a minute," and shut the door in Peter's face.

It was raining outside, a thin, oily drizzle that got inside Peter's collar and made him feel unclean. They headed for a low-slung cafe that looked like it served gin and only gin; at the threshold, Tarr stopped dead, trapping Peter in the rain. Peter tapped him on the shoulder.

"What's the matter now?"

"Do you know what, Mr. Guillam," Tarr said slowly. "I think I'm a bit tired of drinking out of dirty glasses."

"There's a restaurant on the corner, then," Peter said irritably. "Come on, Tarr, make up your mind, it's raining."

"I've got a better idea," Tarr said. He'd perked up, maybe getting into the fresh air, or more likely, Peter thought gloomily, it was the opportunity to irritate him. "Do you have a jacket I could borrow? I've only got one suit, and I left it in bloody Istanbul."

About an hour later, they were in a small restaurant in Le Marais. Peter's doubts were partly dispelled by the steamy, good-smelling interior, partly by the age of the grizzled maître d' who took their coats gravely, obviously part of the family. The place was a relic of the pre-war Paris that Peter's mother had remembered, and he felt obvious and ill-fitting in his modern suit. Tarr, to his annoyance, seemed totally at ease, chatting with the waiter, who had the same wide forehead and long nose as the maître d', in French with an outrageous Marseillaise accent. Peter's jacket hugged so tightly around Tarr's big shoulders and chest as to be almost ridiculous. Instead, he was an attractive sight, and Peter watched him covertly. By the time the waiter brought a steaming tureen to their table and began to ladle soup into bowls, he was already warmed through by the real wood-burning fire and the excellent wine (the ordering of which Peter had taken charge of - he may not have gotten much from his father, but he'd be damned if he'd disgrace his memory by allowing Tarr to order the house red).

Peter couldn't help but be aware of the ludicrousness of the situation, but Tarr's air of perpetual amusement somehow defused it into something they could both laugh at. He caught Peter's gaze once with a knowing look, then grinned, so obviously pleased that Peter didn't bother to hide it after that. It was a relief. They worked their way through a couple of bottles of Merlot, and between that and the rich, delicious soup, the aromatic bread, and then the pheasant, and even the pleasant conversation - faltering at first, but easy after the second glass - he felt the last few weeks, Haydon's betrayal, Richard, everything, begin to slip into the past.

"This was a bloody good idea," he said, sitting back at last, pleasantly full. They were speaking English now, had been since the end of the first bottle, and besides, Tarr's accent was spoiling his dinner ( _fuck off_ , Tarr had said cheerfully when Peter communicated this to him).

"The trouble with you is that you don't know how to have fun," Tarr - Ricki - said, smirking. "Too fucking English."

"Oh, and you do, I suppose," Peter muttered. Tarr spread his hands magnanimously as if to say, look at the bounty I have provided you. He'd taken off Peter's jacket between the cheese and the sherry, and was lounging in his chair now like a satisfied cat. "Where did you pick up that rare skill, then?"

Ricki shrugged. "Here and there," he said. Peter smirked. A spy's evasion. Then Ricki looked up, and his expression softened. "My dad was a solicitor from Perth. Bloody nutcase, certifiable. We moved around. London, for a little while - I don't really remember it. Rotterdam for longer. Did a couple of years of school there. Marseilles between ten and fourteen. Then he said we were moving to Luxembourg, and I fucked off."

He looked up at Peter; the silence stretched out, an invitation. Peter's throat felt thick, his mouth stiff. Finally, Ricki muttered, "All right, don't have a bloody heart attack," and Peter cleared his throat.

"I grew up in Stoke-on-Trent, actually."

Ricki's face split into a wide, open grin, and for a second, Peter was dazzled. "You're joking."

He shook his head, and lapsed briefly into the thick Stoke accent he could still pull off even now, hoping it would make Ricki laugh. "Aye, birthed in t' Potteries, rolled from a clay pit." Obligingly, Ricki roared with laughter. Peter lapsed back into his usual voice, his cheeks warm. "My father was a French wine merchant, from Bordeaux. Met my mother at a convention of some sort. Bit of an attraction of opposites, but they were never happy. He left when I was twelve, actually. Ran off with a saxophonist."

He stopped then, shocked at himself. It was all in his file, of course, just like all of Tarr's family history was in his, and Tarr possibly even knew it already, but Peter never told people about the divorce, hadn't even told anyone at school that next term. _Lacking a strong father figure, or with an overly forceful female influence exerted in early life, the male child may develop homosexual inclinations that do not fall away with adulthood, as is healthy and natural._ It just seemed so... tawdry. Part of himself was angry for taking part in this charade, this clumsy exchange to establish a trust which couldn't be real on either side. But he was drunk enough to recognise that another part of him, the lonely part, was as hungry for this as for the warmth, and the wine, and the food.

"Bugger," Ricki said sympathetically.

"I was in boarding school, naturally. I didn't even find out until I got home that summer."

"D'you reckon they recruit from the Social Services records?" Ricki said abruptly. "Little boys from broken homes, secrets and lies and puppy dogs tails?"

Peter shrugged. He felt an overpowering weariness come over him suddenly, and found he wanted to sleep more than anything, maybe for a hundred years or so. He yawned, unable to stifle it, and Ricki signalled the waiter.

"Where are you staying?"

"The Royale."

Ricki raised his eyebrows. "On the Treasury, Peter Guillam?"

It was stretching a point a little, perhaps, but he _was_ working, technically. And his back still hadn't forgiven him for the three weeks he'd spent sleeping on the sofa of that bloody awful safe house of George's.

Ricki walked him through the wet and gleaming streets to his hotel. Before they left the winding streets of Le Marais, they saw two men walking hand in hand, chins high, defiant, and Peter felt something else loosen in his chest.

They paused outside the entrance to the Royale, a little aside from the doorman.

"Invite me up," Ricki said softly. He touched the lapel of Peter's jacket, rubbed it between his fingers, and Peter felt it like a caress. He only hesitated for a second.

"All right. But I'm - I'm not up to much." He cleared his throat. "It's been a long day."

A slow grin lit Ricki's face, and he shifted closer, so that Peter could feel his warmth all down his body. "All right, Mr. Guillam. I'm used to doing all the work, don't you worry."

"We're in the bloody street, man," Peter said, shakily. Ricki chuckled, soft and filthy. His gaze was like a brand on Peter's back as they walked into the foyer together. In his room, finally, he reached for the light, and Ricki caught his wrist in a grip which made his pulse speed up. He crowded Peter up against the wall, firmly but not roughly, and when his hot mouth found Peter's throat in the dark, Peter shivered.

"All right?" Ricki murmured, tugging at Peter's collar to expose more skin to the air and his exploring lips, his teeth.

"Don't stretch my jacket," he hissed, and Ricki dropped his head onto his shoulder and laughed.

"Christ, you're a wanker," he breathed, and then they were kissing clumsily, desperately, clawing at each other's clothes, stripping each other bare. They staggered towards the bed and found it, and Peter unbuttoned Ricki's shirt and slid it off his shoulders, learned the shape of his body with his hands, drinking in warm skin and the hitching, gasping sounds he made. Finally, with an inarticulate groan, he pushed Peter back and tugged off his trousers. His hand was sure and deft on Peter's cock, and Peter closed his eyes and breathed through his open mouth and tried to keep control of himself.

"I've got you," Ricki murmured into his ear. "You don't have to be quiet, Peter. It's bloody Paris, nobody's listening."

"I - can't help it," Peter gritted out, hating how breathy and high his voice sounded. "Force of habit, I'm afraid."

"You public school boys." Peter could hear the smile in his voice. "Well, let's see, shall we?"

The mattress dipped, and then his breath gusted over Peter's cock, and Peter bit his lip. He did make a sound when Ricki's soft, wet mouth enveloped him and he sucked, the pleasure shocking him out of silence. Ricki hummed around him in satisfaction, the vibrations sending sparks along his nerves, and Peter gave himself up to it between one perfect stroke of Ricki's tongue and the next, and let the pleasure pierce him through the heart and bowels like a sword.

"Christ," he rasped, then, "Oh, Christ," again, and he ran his fingers through Ricki's hair and stroked his jaw, and arched back and came into Ricki's waiting hand, Ricki coaxing him through it. It was a soft, sensual blur after that, Ricki murmuring filthy endearments into his ear, and perhaps Peter murmuring some back; Ricki straddling him, his hard, beautiful cock between Peter's thighs, and Peter wriggling down the bed to taste him, all shame gone with the sex and the alcohol. He looked up, once, to see Ricki's face lit by a passing glow from the street, maybe a car, his expression an agonised rictus of pleasure, but also maybe grief. And Peter's eyes were watering, but only from the exertion. Afterwards Ricki wiped his eyes against Peter's shoulder and sniffed fiercely before muttering, "Going to the loo," so Peter was able to pull himself together in peace.

They lay together, sharing a cigarette in a cocoon of forgiving quiet. Outside, it was still raining. Thoughts circled around Peter - whether Ricki would go back to London, how he'd face him in the morning, whether Richard would leave his books with his landlady or would make Peter come and fetch them, what the Circus would look like when Peter got back, and what the Haydon inquiry would find out about Algiers and his lost agents - but they seemed as ephemeral as the cigarette smoke, and blew away with it. He emerged from them to find, without much concern, that Ricki was watching him.

"There'll be an inquiry into Algiers," Ricki said.

Peter stared, stuttered, "How did you know I -" then stopped himself. Idiot. Don't give anything away. He reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. Ricki shaded his eyes, shrinking into the pillows reproachfully. Ricki shrugged, a sinuous movement of his body against the sheets. Then his soft mouth curled up into a smile that was almost sad, and he reached over and touched Peter's cheek, his throat. Peter let him, nonplussed.

"I know something you don't, Mr. Guillam," he said. "The trick to keeping secrets is that you don't keep them all the time. Or you get old and mad, like Control."

He reached over Peter and switched off the light again. His warm, silky shoulder brushed against Peter's cheek.

"You're not as difficult as you think you are."

"You're not as clever as you think you are," Peter muttered, shaken.

They lay in the darkness for a while, and Peter thought Ricki had fallen asleep. But then he said, out of the darkness, "Other people learn to keep secrets when they grow up. But people like us, we have to learn how not to keep them. Living in fear isn't the problem, is it? It's learning how not to. That's what growing up is, for us. And most of us never fucking do it."

Like Haydon, playing a great game with people's lives, Peter thought; but Control was no better, with his little chess pieces with faces stuck to them. _Even George Smiley_ , a disloyal, secret part of his mind whispered.

Ricki's breathing softened out into sleep, and the room became even quieter, even more like a safe haven where he could think rebellious things, forbidden things. He thought about Ann, about Jim Prideaux, about Ricki's dream of Irina, about himself. He was too old to stop having secrets altogether. But he might, he thought, have a few he could give up.

 

THE END

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  * [[podfic] Five Times Peter Guillam Didn't Have A Drink with Ricki Tarr (and One Time He Did)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/518462) by [Chestnut_filly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chestnut_filly/pseuds/Chestnut_filly)




End file.
